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Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

theintercept.com

41–50 of 114 posts

Re: Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

#41
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why Ecuadorians? This is American company destroying other countries.

Stuff like this is the reason when the west cries about China silk road initiative most of the countries don't care as Western countries have been exploiting their resources for years what difference does it make if China does it.

Correction, it is not the west as a single entity. Big western nations have tried exploiting other smaller western nations.

In my native Norway I know several cases of this. When it became possible to utilize hydro-electric power, British businessmen would travel around the country and get farmers owning waterfalls drunk. Then they would get them to sign contracts handing over the waterfall to them.

Same deal when Norway found oil. American oil companies tried hard to screw us over. They put in a lot of pressure and played dirty games. Fortunately our leader at the time Einar Gerhardsen was high skeptical of big capital and a self proclaimed democratic socialist.

They bid their time instead of getting sucked into a one sided deal. In fact the system we managed to put in place to fight big multinationals trying to exploit our resources impressed the Chinese. So I believe Deng Xiaoping sent a delegation to Norway. China had in the past suffered from companies from great western powers owning everything in China. The Chinese wanted to learn from us how we had manage to let in foreign capital and expertise while keeping national control.

So some of the systems in China with joint ventures etc was inspired by systems setup in Norwegian oil industry to protect Norwegian interests. Any small nation western or otherwise is vulnerable to exploitation by large rich nations.

Today China itself is frequently twisting our arm.

Re: Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

#42
post #2

https://www.chevron.com/corporate-responsibility Is it any wonder that I'm extremely jaded with any corporation's public speech about how they care or how they're a responsible citizen? At the end of the day, corporate incentives are driven by shareholders and most shareholders are short-term driven, and only cry out after disasters happen, never before. Most corporations these days feel no different from tobacco com…

one solution is to use your rights as a shareholder to hold companies accountable to your long term interest. vote your proxies. or support year-round initiatives such as https://www.yourstake.org/petition/disclose-corporate-politi...

Norway actually does this and it's fairly effective.

The ever so slight downside to this is that, while Norway's state investment fund is vastly wealthy shareholder of many companies that can throw its weight around, I am, regrettably, not.

One solution for this is for you to give me money.

Re: Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

#43
post #7

Wow this sounds crazy. He won a lawsuit in Ecuador, so the company got a judge in Manhattan New York to put him on house arrest? Isn't that overstepping their jurisdiction and abuse of power? Seems like a huge miscarriage of justice. Didn't even know this was possible unless there's something I'm missing here? Sounds like someone is acting out of bounds here.

I have a hard time believing that the New York Bar suspended him for winning a lawsuit.

I have a hard time believing that they suspended him without a hearing, describing him as an "immediate threat to public order" but they fucking did it anyway.

Re: Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

#44
post #16

On the one hand, this sounds bad for Chevron. On the other hand, what is the probability that corruption happened in an Ecuadorian court vs a US court? It seems to me somewhat more likely that the Ecuadorian court was corrupt here, than that Chevron managed to influence a US judge to this degree. Of note, he could simply turn over his phone and this would end. There is no assertion here that he is protecting some wit…

If we are to believe the article, Chevron was on a vendetta against him, spending huge amounts of money to destroy him. Paying people to dig dirt. Surely you must see the immorality of this?

I mean we are not asked to believe anything crazy here. A company made enormous environmental damage. Is that premise hard to believe? Next they refused to pay or invent excuses? Again nothing odd about that.

Some lawyer takes up the case and wins. Again nothing out of the ordinary. The company fights him tooth and nail. Nothing weird thus far.

What is novel is really just the extent to which they have gone to smear him and destroy him. That they are motivated to do this is not strange at all.

Re: Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

#45
post #2

https://www.chevron.com/corporate-responsibility Is it any wonder that I'm extremely jaded with any corporation's public speech about how they care or how they're a responsible citizen? At the end of the day, corporate incentives are driven by shareholders and most shareholders are short-term driven, and only cry out after disasters happen, never before. Most corporations these days feel no different from tobacco com…

one solution is to use your rights as a shareholder to hold companies accountable to your long term interest. vote your proxies. or support year-round initiatives such as https://www.yourstake.org/petition/disclose-corporate-politi...

If I had shares, sure. But if I have disdain for the company, why would I want to own their shares? Hence, you have self-selecting shareholders who don't care.

Re: Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

#46
post #7

Wow this sounds crazy. He won a lawsuit in Ecuador, so the company got a judge in Manhattan New York to put him on house arrest? Isn't that overstepping their jurisdiction and abuse of power? Seems like a huge miscarriage of justice. Didn't even know this was possible unless there's something I'm missing here? Sounds like someone is acting out of bounds here.

Charges were for violating US law. Chevron claimed that he paid off Equatorian judges, manufactured evidence etc. >> The decision hinged on the testimony of an Ecuadorian judge named Alberto Guerra, who claimed that Donziger had bribed him during the original trial and that the decision against Chevron had been ghostwritten. A lot of stuff happens in such places, but when you take on Chevron size companies, you bette…

Chevron can't "bribe" the judge... They can just pay him hundreds of thousands of dollars and get him US residency while taking extreme care in prepping his testimony (which somehow still contained lies and inconsistencies after all that prep.)

Re: Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

#47
post #2

https://www.chevron.com/corporate-responsibility Is it any wonder that I'm extremely jaded with any corporation's public speech about how they care or how they're a responsible citizen? At the end of the day, corporate incentives are driven by shareholders and most shareholders are short-term driven, and only cry out after disasters happen, never before. Most corporations these days feel no different from tobacco com…

one solution is to use your rights as a shareholder to hold companies accountable to your long term interest. vote your proxies. or support year-round initiatives such as https://www.yourstake.org/petition/disclose-corporate-politi...

So you're proposing the Ecuadorian government should've given a whole lot of money to Chevron to be able to have a say in the matter?

At this point I would be fine with them sending in their army and raiding the place. If some of the higher-ups get collateral-damaged during the raid that wouldn't be a huge loss to the world.

Re: Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

#48
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one solution is to use your rights as a shareholder to hold companies accountable to your long term interest. vote your proxies. or support year-round initiatives such as https://www.yourstake.org/petition/disclose-corporate-politi...

So you're proposing the Ecuadorian government should've given a whole lot of money to Chevron to be able to have a say in the matter? At this point I would be fine with them sending in their army and raiding the place. If some of the higher-ups get collateral-damaged during the raid that wouldn't be a huge loss to the world.

Amen.

Re: Environmental lawyer who won a judgment against Chevron lost everything

#49
post #4

One thing I'm confused about is why he's charged with criminal contempt. > To Donziger, who had already endured 19 days of depositions and given Chevron large portions of his case file, the request was beyond the pale, and he appealed it on the grounds that it would require him to violate his commitments to his clients. Still, Donziger said he’d turn over the devices if he lost the appeal. He said he would obey the o…

He lost the appeal. From Wikipedia: > In March 2014, a United States district court judge ruled that the Ecuadorian plaintiff's lead US attorney, Steven Donziger, had used "corrupt means," including payment of almost US$300,000 in bribes, to obtain the 2011 court verdict in Ecuador. The judge did not rule on the underlying issue of environmental damages. While the US ruling does not affect the decision of the court i…

I believe you are conflating appeals. The criminal contempt of court is from August 2019, the appeal you cite is from 2016. That wiki article seems to have major quality and sourcing concerns and is not something that I would trust.
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